Iomart Group, the Glasgow-based cloud computing and managed hosting services company, doubled its pre-tax profits to £2.4m ($3.7m) in the six months to September 30.

The acquisitive Aim-traded company increased its revenues by 36 per cent to £15.4m.

Angus MacSween, chief executive, said Iomart’s market opportunity was driven by the continuing shift of products and services on to the internet.

“All our customers who trade online are seeing a growing part of their revenue coming from their online presence,” he said. “IT departments are also much more willing to outsource than they were two or three years ago.”

The company, which owns five data centres across the UK, quoted industry research that said companies moving to cloud services were cutting their IT costs by up to 56 per cent, and spending on private cloud storage was expected to increase at a compound annual rate of 29 per cent from 2010 to 2015.

Mr MacSween said: “I think we are in the infancy of this market – it has many years of growth ahead of it, and we only need a small part of that to be successful.”

In April, Iomart acquired Switch Media Group for up to £1.2m while this month it bought EQSN for up to £2.5m and agreed to pay up to £1.2m for Global Gold.

Mr MacSween said: “We continue to expand our skills, product sets and infrastructure to deliver an increasing range of cloud services and expect to continue the growth we have recently enjoyed.”

Iomart’s cashflow during the six-month period increased to £4.1m from £3.1m in the comparable period last year, while earnings per share more than doubled to 2.23p from 1.05p.

Shares in Iomart, which have increased by 38 per cent since January, closed on Tuesday 2.4 per cent lower at 120.5p.